


Highwayman

by pollitt



Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Community: picfor1000, Episode Related, Episode Tag, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-15
Updated: 2009-11-15
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:42:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pollitt/pseuds/pollitt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>I fly a starship across the Universe divide/ And when I reach the other side/ I'll find a place to rest my spirit if I can"</i> --"Highwayman" by Johnny Cash</p>
            </blockquote>





	Highwayman

**Author's Note:**

> Written for round 7 of picfor1000, an episode tag/coda for the SGA S5 episode, "Vegas." And there's a nod to the 1927 film _Wings_

Even in a desert like Vegas, the cemeteries have grass. And trees, whose branches and leaves could offer mourners a moment's refuge from the sun or provide shade to a grave in an attempt to make the plot feel less, well, dead.

John had been to more funerals than he cared to think about--

Friends who had died too soon: living fast, dying young and leaving very little for their heartbroken parents to bury and mourn; the good kids, who did everything right and still couldn't beat the tiny traitorous cells in their body; the ones who couldn't take it anymore.

Fellow soldiers: brave, so _fucking_ brave and heroic, fighting and _dying_ for what they had to believe was the right reason (even if it wasn't) and to keep their loved ones, their country, safe.

Cops who'd taken a bullet, a knife, fists, the business end of a bat, and sometimes a god damn heart attack, leaving their wife and kids to pick up the pieces, to live forever being so-and-so's kid.

His mom, the only thing that had kept him tethered to the father and brother who shared his last name. When she had finally let go, finally admitted that she'd been given a fight she couldn't win, he'd stood next to his father and Dave and put on the brave and mournful face, and when the last of the well-wishers had left, so had John. He never looked back.

Claire… he'd kept his promise to her and brought her home to her parents. The broken bones, broken flesh hadn't hurt as much as the death on his hands--those soldiers, the civilians, hers. He didn't care about the discharge, not really, not when he compared it to what he felt handing the small teddy bear back to Claire's mother, his broken attempts at apologizing for not bringing their little girl back home alive. John hadn't cried like that since he'd been a kid.

The one funeral John never thought he'd be watching was his own.

There are more people than he expected there to be, guys from the department, a couple of friends, and Dave. People in higher up places than probably he can imagine pulled strings, ropes and pulleys no doubt, and got the late (un-resigned) Detective John Sheppard a hero's burial, dress blues and everything. (He suspects it's the press, the whole "hero" thing, that brought Dave thousands of miles away from the safety of his comfortable home to stand out in the heat and say goodbye to the little brother he hadn't spoken to in years.)

"How does it feel to be a dead man?" Rodney McKay asks, speaking for the first time since they'd arrived at the cemetery grounds.

It's a question John's been asking himself since he woke up in a hospital room unlike any he'd ever been in before. There had been tubes up his nose, in his arms, and inserted in places where tubes _really_ should never be, and his entire body was one hell of a pain, but the first thing that John had thought when he woke up was 'shit, I'm alive.'

McKay had been there, looking a worse for wear, like he hadn't slept in days (which turned out to be the case, actually). McKay had started off with big words--space-time interdimensional rifting continuums and talk about possibly very bad things--before John had been able to cough and hold up an arm that felt like it weighed a ton and stop his talking.

After that McKay had explained in small(er) words, and at times almost condescendingly so, that John had ("_suicidal, dammit, I, the other me, I mean, was right, god-damn hero complex_") figured it out, and thanks to him, they'd been able to stop the Wraith's transmission. There were complications, but they'd won. Mostly.

McKay gave him a choice--they could release him, bring him back to Las Vegas County and stick him in some bed on the government's dime until he recovered, and he could go back to the (non-) life that he had. Or he could go with McKay, join McKay's team and cross galaxies, fight aliens, and save the world a couple of times over.

It wasn't a difficult choice, not really, but John flipped a coin just to make sure. And if things went really bad, he could always blame it on a piece of copper and nickel.

So tragically, Detective John Sheppard died while apprehending the serial killer that had been terrorizing Las Vegas.

At least that's what the world that was not Rodney McKay's world would think.

In Rodney McKay's world--space travel, Wraiths, the existence of universes (plural) where different versions of him exist, versions that McKay's met, has known--however… well, John was going to be finding out who and what John Sheppard would do and be.

"For a dead guy, I feel pretty damn alive. Sore, confused, not sure I really want to do what you're telling me I'm going to be doing, but all in all… Pretty damn alive."

"Good."

John sees McKay out of his peripheral vision. This is weird for him too, although probably not for the same reasons. John might not be a detective any longer, but he'd have to be blind not to see that there's a lot to Rodney McKay's story. John's finding that he wants to know about it.

"Alright, this is starting to get creepy. Creepier." John turns toward the car, turns away from his funeral. "Ready to go?"

"I thought that would be my line." McKay smiles almost imperceptibly and opens the car door for John.

It's months before John steps through the stargate, but when he does it feels like coming home. (And that was even before McKay showed him the gateships.)

This might not be another reality, but some days John's not sure. The John Sheppard who died in the Nevada desert isn't the same man he sees in the mirror every morning.

He can live with that.

**Author's Note:**

> **St Nicholas, Radford Semele Church**
> 
> (c) CovLtwt
> 
> More about the shot: _it was taken at a 16th century church which unfortunately partially burnt down last year. A real shame, as apparently the bell that local ringers used there, of similar vintage, was possibly damaged too much to use again._


End file.
